Donald Trump is trying to implement some sartorial rigour within his administration. According to intelligence from the White House, the president believes his staff should “have a certain look” and aspire to “be sharply dressed”. Men should wear a tie. Female colleagues have been told to “dress like a woman”, whatever that means. Perhaps he wants them to swing through the White House on tree vines, wearing jungle pelts in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Jane?
As with so many of his executive orders so far, it’s predictably disappointing. And possibly misguided. One of the few joys to find in this new world order is in observing just how uniformly shambolic and ill-matched it is. I assumed the administration’s chaotic deportment was in fact a marvellously choreographed campaign to deflect “the opposition party” from the fine details of the day.
What better way to disguise your flailing incompetence at a press briefing, for example, than by wearing a tie of such exceptional ugliness that no one will really hear what you’re trying to say? Sean Spicer knows how to make headlines. The White House press secretary’s clumsy attempts to explain the botched military operations that led to the death of civilians and a Navy seal following a raid on Yemen last week were overlooked as focus fell instead on the diagonally striped monstrosity in poison yellow and navy tied around his neck.
I just assumed the tie was sartorial spin. Call it Project Blind: dull the people to the ineptitude of your policymaking and practice by wearing an eye-wateringly unattractive wardrobe. Donald Trump’s ill-fitting suit, Fanta complexion and feathery comb-over are already well documented: but he looks almost suave compared to the unshaven Steve Bannon, with his livid red proboscis, stained T-shirts and straining shirt buttons. So slovenly is he, and so swollen with choler, he seems to ooze with an especially Chaucerian brand of humour. Watching him slumped in his flannel shirts in the Oval Office, I am reminded of The Nun’s Priest Tale: “For God’s love, as tak som laxatyf.”
Then there’s Mike Pence, who wears smarter white button-down shirts, electric-coloured ties and navy suits, with all the self-possession of a Weeble. Or secretary of defence James Mattis, cadaverous in camo. Attorney-general Jeff Sessions wears pocket-sized suits and ties in reflux yellow and spotted vermilion: he carries them both with the skittery, overly keen mien of a warm-up host.
For comic opportunities alone, I hope Trump has directed his female staffers to follow the lead of Kellyanne Conway in their efforts to look “like a woman”. The counsellor to the president is the undisputed star of this fashion circus: a feisty, former cheerleader who, to judge by the state of her inauguration ensemble, takes her style inspiration from the Peruvian refugee Paddington Bear.
; a muddle of lurid jackets and look-at-me ensembles in primary brights — citrine, vermilion, blood — that are every bit as jarring as her coarse rhetoric. She embraces the type of womanly power glamour observed by weather girls and newscasters: her sleeveless dresses testify to a woman’s right to bare arms or, in the case of the ruffled gold jacket she wore to canvass at Trump Tower last November, the right to resemble a gilded valance sheet. But time has been cruel to Conway. Where once she might have been described as perky, the first weeks in office have lent her sleep-starved, kohl-rimmed looks the ravaged expression of a raptor. I can’t wait to see what she’ll wear next.
Whatever about “dressing sharp”. It must take a concerted effort, a willingness even, to look so collectively dreadful. It’s also in keeping with the evolution (or should that be devolution?) of world-leader style. After years of slick homogeny on the political stage — slim, dark-suited, smug — we’re now seeing a return of the fashion maverick: think Yanis Varoufakis and his football manager leathers, or Nigel Farage in his Toad-of-Toad-Hall Crombie and tulip-pink ties.
Similarly, British prime minister Theresa May’s affection for a voluminous tartan suit by Vivienne Westwood has been much discussed in recent weeks. As with the fabled leopard-print shoes in which she strode to power, May has worn the suits in moments of political — and personal — vulnerability, to announce her determination to lead the Conservative party, for example, or lay down a challenging Brexit strategy. Like Spicer’s tie, the tartan suit has proven a nifty decoy: capable of sucking up headlines and loud enough to distract from the political business of the day.
It may look daft, but the wacky wardrobe is a formidable weapon: bad clothes stimulate alternative conversations, they’re diverting and normalising. Conway’s flowerpot hats are awful, Bannon’s flak jacket is filthy and Spicer’s ties are plain obnoxious, but they all throw light on the individual that wears them. They give the wearer personality. Even more significantly, the clothes are humanising: one could almost feel sorry for Spicer; while Bannon’s gorilla-like bearing has become as morbidly fascinating as his guerrilla-style of governance. It’s all quite stupefying to behold — which, presumably, is the point.
So rather than insist his aides smarten up, if I were Trump I’d order everyone to keep on clowning around: brighter ties, Hawaiian print shirts, lots of gold lamé. Dressing like a fool never seemed so wise.
